


and you can do no wrong (in my eyes)

by bloodflood



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/F, Johanna in Thirteen, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-08-08 16:40:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7765291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodflood/pseuds/bloodflood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You shake as you remember Seven. It's probably ash now. Ash and fire, but that fits because you've never been anything different." Or, Johanna Mason in the war after being rescued. Katniss / Johanna</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you wish you felt better

Hearing damage - Thom Yorke  
. . .

You are Johanna Mason… were Johanna Mason. You don’t know who you are anymore. 

Who are you? (What are you?) 

Maybe you died somewhere? Maybe you died and then you were reborn into a thing of pain. 

That makes sense. The logic of that. It makes sense because nothing else does. Not the white walls, floors, roses, doctors. It doesn’t make sense when they hurt you, drown you, always drowning you, why are they drowning you?

Your name is not Johanna Mason, the people in white, white, white tell you, filling up the tub and stabbing wires into your skin with their smiles full of long and sharp teeth, (white white white white.) Your name is Pain. And then they make you believe it. 

How could you not be? It’s all you know. 

And then, after, they leave you gasping, pleading, bleeding stark red against the white.

The doctor who comes to fix you looks like she cares, maybe. 

You beg her to kill you. 

. . . 

She never does. 

. . .

For a while, you actually do remember who you are. 

Johanna Mason, victor of the … 71st? Hunger Games. You entered twice into the arena and never made it back out.

And for a while, you can pretend you smell pine trees, you can pretend to see the orange of the sun and the green of the grass. For a while, you can pretend you’re dry and safe and away from this white and sterile smell that will kill you someday if they won’t do it first. 

For a while, you can pretend you’re okay, that you’re fine, fine, fine. Until he starts to scream. 

You forget his name sometimes, but you never forget that something about him is bread, and that he belongs to somebody with grey eyes. (Pretty eyes.) 

You don’t forget his name now. 

“Peeta!” Your voice is a tracker jacker’s nest, vibrating the air with your anger. But it does nothing to the metal restraints on your wrist. 

“Katniss!” Peeta screams back, maybe in response. You can hear him cough blood. “Katniss, please, please, please, please!” 

Eventually, his words start to drift into rawness, into red, something carnal and animalistic. You start to hear anger somewhere. 

You think they’ve broken him. You hope they’ve killed him. 

(But you know they haven’t. You know that a doctor is patching him up, preparing him for tomorrow’s promise of new horrors.) 

Your mouth is a new thing of soreness, and when it’s your turn, you wish you had saved your fury. 

. . .

You don’t get Peeta’s screams to warn you beforehand the next day. 

You’re in the middle of trying to hold on to something that’s real and here when they burst in, President Snow behind them. 

You thrash wildly, aching to get your hands around his throat. He chuckles at you, blending in with the walls a little too well to be a coincidence. 

His hands reach for your face, crimson stained lips curled into a taunting smirk. 

“Happy birthday, Johanna.” He breathes, and you choke on the scent of blood. He smooths back the lack of hair that you have. “Are you enjoying our treatments?” Snow asks, hand drifting to your collarbone. You’re gagging on roses. 

“Go to hell,” you spit venom in his snake eyes. He draws back immediately, looking shocked and disgusted, and you cackle, lungs coated in rust. 

He gives a curt nod to the guy with the wires, but doesn’t stick around to watch you scream. 

Before he leaves, you call out. “Red will always stain white, don’t you know? Are you ready for red, Snow? Are you? It’s coming.” 

Even though you drown twenty-one times, you think seeing anger on Snow’s face is the best present you’ve ever received. 

. . .

You think they just like shock you now, to get you to cry, to beg. Almost like it’s a game. 

They stopped asking about the rebellion weeks ago. 

. . .

Weeks pass; they don’t touch you again. And you sit in fear of white and of your anticipation. You await the pain. 

Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain pain pain. 

You are pain. You were made for pain. Made to be pain. You are nobody nobody nobody. 

Who are you? 

Weeks pass; they don’t touch you again. 

Until they do. 

This time, the torture is unrelenting and burning, and this time, you’re sure they will kill you. 

You think it goes on for three days. Three days of electric shocks and drowning and whips. You are now Pain forever, it’s what you inhale, it’s what lies in your bloodstreams.

Sometime around your thirtieth trip to the tub, you faint because they’ve been holding you under for seven minutes. 

You finally, (finally, finally, finally,) die at the eighth minute and tenth electrical shock. 

“Shit! Is she dead!? Hurry, go get the doctor!” 

. . . 

They resurrect you. And it doesn’t come as a surprise, but you can’t help but sigh in disappointment. You thought you were finally leaving the Games. 

You try to pretend again. You try to pretend that you’re safe and dry and home. 

(Where is home?) 

You shake as you remember Seven. It’s probably ash now. Ash and fire, but that fits because you’ve never been anything different. 

It could be the blood oozing out of your re-opened stitches, but you imagine you hear glass shattering in the distance, guards dropping outside your door. 

(. . . Promises to keep . . . and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. The woods are lovely, dark, dark, dark, dark, and deep.

Tick tock. This is a clock. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.)

“There she is!” 

. . .

You awake to grey and panic. 

A hand on your arm, holding you down. Another on your face, trying to shove something up your nose. 

Water, you think, they’re going to blast water up my nose and into my brain. 

You scream, your lungs threatening to come out of your mouth, and swipe your arms wildly, barely noticing the lack of restraints. 

“Miss Mason!” A man in. . . grey says to you, hands held up and eyes on the scalpel you just grabbed from the table. “You’re safe!” 

Baring your teeth, you lunge, hands reaching for the collar of his shirt. 

He gives you a panicked look, eyes wide and worried. He tries again. “You are in District Thirteen, you’re safe!” 

The words don’t register in your mind. You’ve never been safe. You are not safe. You are pain. You are pain. You are pain. You are pain. 

(You’ll never be safe.) 

He sees something in you the next moment that makes him scream for help. Maybe it’s because you are pressing the scalpel into his neck, blood running through your fingers. Maybe it’s because you’re digging your fingers under his ribcage. For whatever the reason, he screams, mouth open and pleading; there’s a prick in your neck and fire follows into your veins. 

And then you’re dying all over again.


	2. a drunken salesman

It’s almost not different, being in Thirteen. They still keep you held up in a room, restraints on and smiles of . . . something. You’re not sure what anything means anymore. 

They tell you everything that’s been happening after the third Quarter Quell. They tell you that they got Katniss and Finnick and Beetee out in time, but, they mutter with frowns, watching your hands twitch, they didn’t get you or Peeta out in time. 

They talk about this girl a lot, Katniss, they talk about her as if she brings the sun’s flames into the sky and washes away the dark blood seeping between the cracks. It takes you a while to remember Katniss. The girl on fire, they tell you, Mockingjay, they whisper with hope. You ask; they tell you that yes, she does have grey eyes. (Pretty eyes.) 

And then you ask about Peeta, if he finally is back to grey eyes, if he knows that’s what he’s been screaming, begging for. But they stiffen and shift away, away from you and your shaky hands. You ask, demand, but they never tell you. 

The room they keep you hostage in is bare, bare and grey, not a pretty grey but an ugly grey. The room they keep you in is bare and grey, save for these irritating orange lights that are supposed to calm you down, but they just keep you from sleeping. 

You guess they aren’t so bad. 

Actually, if you were to be honest, the hospital room isn’t bad. They have you on a morphling drip, you can’t feel anything. And that’s more than you can hope for. These people don’t hurt you either, or try to not hurt you. (Are you ready for today? Pain? Are you, are you? Get ready, then. Here we come.) 

One nurse tried to get you to take a bath. (Water, water, water. Are you done being bad, pain? Are you, are you?) 

You almost bit her throat out. 

Today, they tell you they’re going to try to get you off of morphling, that you could become addicted. You don’t have any words to tell them that’s what you want, need. 

Finnick comes in after they leave. You never ever forgot him, ever. 

When he looks at you, smiles, you see the kisses smeared across his shoulders and love in his bronze tangled hair. He looks happy, and you grimace because the concept is so foreign, so foreign you want to tell him careful, careful, be careful, Snow knows and he will take and take and take away. But this is District Thirteen. Snow isn’t here. You are safe? 

No, voices with smiles of long, sharp teeth with blood at the tips whisper, you are pain, you are pain, you are pain.

Your hands shake when Finnick takes them in his warm ones. Your hands shake when you hear his voice the first time in centuries. 

“Hey, Johanna,” teeth glistens against the orange, his eyes say ‘Annie’ over and over and he’s happy. 

You nod, throat cords tight. “I almost forgot you,” 

He doesn’t smile now. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get you out sooner.” You shift against scratchy sheets, the subject of this conversation is forbidden. 

“It’s fine.” You shrug nonchalance, eyes darting away from his watering eyes. Finnick has Annie back, but he’s still so broken, even now he plays with rope. “At least we’re out now.” 

He nods slowly, waiting for you to ask. 

“What happened?” You ask feverishly, clutching his hands tight in yours. “They won’t tell me anything.” 

“About Peeta? Or Katniss?” He watches your eyes when he says her name. 

“Both. Peeta. Katniss. I don’t care just-” 

“Peeta is, well, fine.” Finnick stresses. “Almost, not really.” 

“Finnick!” You growl, teeth bared and red. (Are you, are you?)

“Peeta tried to kill Katniss as soon as he saw her.” Finnick sighs, jaw clenched unhappily. 

You’re confused. You do not understand. You heard Peeta screaming for her, for Katniss, for grey eyes. You don’t understand. “T-That’s not right.” You nod confidently, glaring at Finnick because surely he is tricking you. “You’re wrong. Peeta loves her. He would never.” 

“It’s called highjacking. The Capitol-” 

“Shut up. You’re wrong.” You hiss at him. Highjacking. You know what it is, you know exactly what it is. You heard it in the buzzing in Peeta’s cell, you heard it in his bloody screams. You know what it is and why, and it makes more sense than anything you’ve ever felt. 

“They made Peeta into a weapon.” 

Grey eyes, grey eyes, grey eyes. 

Finnick tells you. Finnick tells you as you look away and to the floor; you don’t want to hear how Katniss ran into the medical room, eyes ablaze with happiness, with love, maybe, and grief, how her lips were forming his name when his fingers locked around her neck and squeezed and squeezed until her grey eyes closed. 

You don’t want to hear how she almost died, how she wore a collar around her neck for the couple of days you were in here. 

You whisper at him to get out, to leave, to never come back to visit you, and then you grasp the morphling drip tighter, shift away from him. 

He doesn’t leave. Not ever. 

(You never wanted him to leave. Not ever.) 

. . .

You’re collapsing into yourself, into white walls and white teeth and white roses. You’re falling into white dreams and you can’t get out. There’s and rush of water and you’re screaming again, again, again. 

Again. Again. Again. “Johanna!” Somebody, Finnick, probably, yells, yanking your own hands away from your veins. 

“Johanna! Wake up, wake up! You are safe!” 

“No,” you’re awake now. Awake and scared and this is what you were made for. You stare him in the eyes, hearing how Annie is holding your hand but covering her ears. “No. I am not. I am pain.” 

And then your body is a dark somewhere, a dark forever. 

. . . 

You have two drips when you wake up the next morning. 

Finnick is by your bed, so is Annie. He looks at you. 

Neither of you talk about it. 

. . . 

“So,” you bring up casually, eyes looking at the orange light in the corner. “Where’s the Mockingjay? Katniss? She not care enough to come visit?” You hiss sarcastically because you know you aren’t being fair. You also forgot her, it makes sense of her to do the same. 

Finnick frowns at you anyway. “She’s in Two, doing some rebel stuff. It’s not that she doesn’t care, Johanna.” 

He’s being sharp with you. Almost combative. You wonder what kind of knots he’s been teaching her. 

Katniss and Finnick are friends and you’ve never wanted to bury yourself so badly before. 

You don’t say anything to him, you can’t, not when he is watching you with furrowed eyebrows. 

His wrist beeps, and his face, oh god his face. 

It goes pale, and you think white white white white.

. . . 

Katniss has been shot. 

Katniss has been shot. 

Katniss has been shot? 

You don’t believe it when they tell you, because Katniss has always been strong and unyielding and whole. But you see the proof right next to you, right beside you. 

You forgot nearly everything about her back in the Capitol, everything except her eyes. So when you saw her the first time, again, a rebirth, you felt like you got knocked on your ass. 

She’s waking up now, eyes fluttering. She’s so slight, fragile, but somehow she is the rebellion, the embodiment of this revolution. 

She awakes with something like fire in her lungs, anger and the feeling of being lost. You can tell because she’s grasping, ripping at the tube in her arm. Even her movements scream, the Mockingjay is awake! 

Her breath is heavy and panicked, fear wet in her eyes. 

It makes sense for you to comfort her, doesn’t it? So why don’t you? So why don’t you? 

(You want to see this little Mockingjay find her wings again.) 

She starts to whimper, near black hair flying about, loose in her braid. 

(You think of another time. Her hair loose and wet 

wet wet wet wet wet.) 

You’re dry now, Miss Mason, the head doctor tells you, dark eyes full of blankness and, you are safe. 

You shiver is what brings her attention to you. 

Her eyes widen, first in fear, then in disbelief. “Johanna?” You don’t answer. People have been calling you Johanna for weeks, for months now. But hearing it from her lips sounds like the biggest lie you’ve ever heard. 

She shakes her head, lips falling, “Johanna, Johanna, Johanna, Johanna, Johanna.” It sounds of a plea, and looks like one. Her eyes are wet and dripping but her lips are cracked and dry.

You wonder just exactly what you forgot. 

. . . 

Her hands shake too, you find out. 

Her breath quivers as well, all speaking of a seventeen-year-old girl breaking. “I’m alive.” Then more quietly, “you’re alive.” 

You pretend to not hear the last part; it wasn’t meant for you. “I heard … Cinna? Made sure to that. The bullet didn’t even touch you. ” You say, watching her eyes alight in curiosity.

She nods, tapping out a heartbreaking rhythm on her bandages. “You forgot?” Her words sound like rough and sharp edges you’ve known your whole life. 

“You’ll have to be more specific, brainless.” You breathe, watching her hands shake and shake and shake, even though you know exactly what she’s talking about. “Yeah I forgot. Electric shocks aren’t really good for the brain.” 

You risk a glance at her grey eyes, (pretty eyes) and see something cold there, and soft, too. You almost want to laugh. 

“Did you forget me?” A whisper, a shot into the dark. You hiss against the urge to tell her that it’s useless, that she shouldn’t try. But she’s young and she has the face of a lion and you know you can’t, won’t, stop her. 

Snow in your house, crimson staining his lips; Don’t try, Johanna, darling. Fire burns brighter in the darkness. 

Snow in the ruins of your house, crimson staining his beard and pointing to the skeletons amidst burning ash; I told you, I told you, I told you. This is the price of resistance. 

“Like I said.” You stand ignoring the nails into your skin. “Go to sleep, Katniss.” And there’s ringing in your ears when she opens her mouth to apologize, and you’re tired, you’re so damn tired. 

. . . 

The room they keep you in is bare and grey, save for these orange lights and a mockingjay without her wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it still sucks


	3. they say you're getting better (but you don't feel any better)

Your hands shake. 

. . . 

Alma Coin greets you like an old friend she’s lost. 

“Johanna Mason.” She has grey hair and grey eyes and grey skin. You don’t trust her. “It’s nice to meet to woman who sacrificed herself for the Mockingjay.” 

You don’t take the hands being offered to you. “You think I sacrificed myself for Katniss?” You chuckle hard and once, mind flashing back to white walls and white teeth and white white white. 

Coin’s smile freezes in place. “Yes, I know you did.” the smile laughs. And oh, she knows something you don't. “I understand that you have lost some of your memories. How is that for you?” 

You’re a victor. You’ve seen death, ripped the throats of your friends out, had the taste of crimson splash across your tongue, came back home only to see fire and ash in the air. You’re a victor, you’ve been told you won the Hunger Games. Losing the memories of your monstrosity wouldn’t be a problem. 

Except you didn’t lose those memories. 

You lost the ones with a girl with grey eyes and hair darker than hell. 

“Okay,” you shrug blood and terror off your shoulders, meet her gaze head on. She doesn’t scare you, and she knows. You’ve faced worse monsters, anyway. “Considering.” 

She nods, looking at you with something akin to curiosity and smugness. “Are you aware that Katniss requested you as a roommate?”

You draw back, anger flushing through your veins. The knowing smirk on Coin’s face only adds gasoline to your fire. 

You shakily bring out a furious “no.” 

“We think it’s a good idea. Your head doctor believes you need to be around familiar friends right now. It’ll only further your healing process.” She’s so condescending that it’s hard not to see President Snow lurking behind the depths of her eyes. 

You open your mouth with a retaliation, hot on your gums. 

“You are dismissed, Miss Mason.” 

When you walk out of there, you still feel her loud laugh cracking against your skin. 

. . . 

Finnick finds you pacing up and down an empty corridor, spitting every District Seven profanity you know out.

“Johanna.” 

He finds you, always finds you. 

“Don’t you have a wife to go back to?” 

“It’s four in the morning.” He says with a voice that lets you know you’re breaking. 

He takes you in his arms and squeezes. “I heard from Haymitch that you met President Coin today.” 

And this time? This time you do tell him, against his collarbone, into his heart. “Careful, careful, be careful, Coin knows and she will take and take and take away.” 

(You tell him, but, he already knows.)

. . .

She's all dark eyes and knives for bones when you see her next. 

“Where were you?”

The orange lights are too much to handle. You’re breaking, breaking, breaking, folding into yourself and falling into an abyss you won’t be able to crawl out of this time. “I met Coin.” 

Katniss softens, her hand reaches out towards you, a thousand words she can’t bring herself to say balanced on the tip of her tongue. “What happened..?” She asks because she sees the shakiness in your bones, sees the world falling around you, all over again. 

“Said you requested me as a roommate.” You whirl, throwing something you weren’t aware that you grabbed near her head. “I’m not fucking weak! I am a Victor!”

She doesn’t comfort you as you fall to the ground and scream, doesn’t comfort you and you bite holes into your lip and sob. 

You wonder why. 

(Maybe she wants to see you find your wings again, too.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An even shorter chapter; still shitty quality. Wild, I know. 
> 
> any mistakes are mine.   
> (r.i.p. anybody who reads this bc it's the worst lol)

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this over on FanFiction.net and I guess I've only know worked up the courage to post it over here. I'm really sorry it sucks.


End file.
